Future Fords could repossess themselves and drive away if you miss payments

The idea of a vehicle repossessing itself does bother me. In the early 2000s I bought a vehicle from Mitsubishi, financed through them. At the time, setting up an automatic payment through them cost a monthly fee, so I set it up through my bank instead.

About 3 years later I got a call from them threatening repossession because I was three months behind on payments. I checked and every payment had been sent.

It turned out that Mitsubishi Motors East had transferred my loan to Mitsubishi Motors West, or something like that, and I had missed that. It was probably in one of the statements I never bothered opening.

This is the world we're going to see soon.

$5 says the hacker will be a nation state, and the "fun" will be an assassination that's hard to prove wasn't a glitch.

Yeah that's a big Definitely.

I wish developers and consumers alike exercised a higher standard for software quality and weren't becoming increasingly tolerant of crap.

The problem is that EVs and traditional ICE vehicles are built very differently. In order to fit enough batteries, the batteries are usually built under the vehicle in what's called a "skateboard". You can't do that easily when retrofitting an ICE vehicle, so you end up sacrificing trunk space. Modern EVs are also much more lightweight and aerodynamic than ICE vehicles, and they can do regen braking. Without all of the modern EV innovations, you just don't get nearly the same range.

So yeah. You should probably get a modern EV and just crack the firmware to jailbreak it instead, which is likely to happen in short order. A challenge there though is that when it comes to autonomous vehicles, you're likely going to need updates to the map data on a semi-regular basis. You could also become liable if someone gets hurt and it's found that you tinkered around with your autonomous car's software.

[0] https://www.thedrive.com/news/42974/fords-281-hp-electric-cr...

Because nobody strongly abuses this, it generally works fine and people go on with their lives around them. Even with the small neighborhood streets around Tokyo, you rarely see it being treated as an issue. At worst, if a truck is trying to pass, a quick honk will cause whoever is driving to rush out and move the car.

I do get disillusioned sometimes though, living in a society where people have a general level of respect for each other.

A person can be both right and sanctimonious

> Owners need not ever be arrested or convicted of a crime for their cash, cars, or even real estate to be taken away permanently by the government. The government does not have to charge the property owner with any specific crime in order to seize the property, and must prove only by a preponderance of the evidence that the property is legally forfeitable. After property has been seized, the burden of proof shifts to the owner, who must prove that the property was not involved in nor obtained as a result of illegal activity [1]

The cops are far worse than some corrupt tow truck drivers. You have a fighting chance against a private company, but you'll rarely win fighting city hall.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/civil_forfeiture

Suppose someone decided my front yard is a good place to store their belongings and dropped a shed there. Should I be able to hire movers to dispose of the shed? Or the police should be my only recourse?

I share the feeling that towing companies can be abusive and that’s not right. I think a better response is to regulate the towing companies and provide remedies. For example, make abusive towing practices illegal with heavy penalties (eg. if they tow illegally, they owe you $1000 per day you lose access to your vehicle). If it’s unfair to tow a vehicle after two minutes, make that illegal.

I lived in a city that had it's own towing department. One evening, I parked in a spot that turned into a tow zone the following data at 7am. The next morning, I got to my care at 6:58am, and a tow truck was parked right in front of me with the driver enjoying a coffee. I quickly hopped into my car, put the key in the ignition, turned it, and....nothing. My battery was dead.

I got out, walked up to the tow truck driver and explained the situation. He backed up his truck, got out the cables, gave me a jump start, and I was on my way. I always wondered if a private service with possibly different incentives would have done the same.

It depends. Wheel lifts are designed to have ratchet straps run through anchors on the side and over the tires to keep the vehicle strapped down. Your vehicle has it's own suspension and it can "pop" off the lift easily.

In "high risk" towing or repossession, you might see an agent lift a vehicle then drive off with it; almost certainly, they're going about a mile or so away to where they can safely stop and then strap the vehicle down properly.

Even then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTKSj-iN6KE

Basically - I want a simple contract that ensures that the device I've bought will continue working as expected (assuming no use of remote/internet connected features) and that the manufacturer is unable to enter my property and change how it functions after sale.

I don't find that particularly unusual. I think the unusual part is rather than manufacturers have this new ability at all. For the majority of our legal history it was either prohibitively expensive or downright impossible for a manufacturer to embed a device that only obeys the manufacturer into consumer products.

Now it's both possible and cheap, and I'd like to see some regulation regarding my rights to purchase a tool.

A small number of places are paying at least a little attention and beginning to ban the most egregious cases of this (ex: NJ considering banning car subscriptions with a specific call out to the behavior of BMW around seat heaters).

But this is going to become a tidal wave of consumer abuse in the very near future - I can fucking guarantee it.

Why would anyone ever sell you a product when they can rent it to you and let their "little green man" be the property manager for free? They won't - not unless they're forced to.

And while I think renting can be a useful way to acquire a product - I sure as hell think it shouldn't be the only one.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19825745

The only restrictions that the financer can put on your use of the vehicle are ones that you agreed to in the loan agreement. They can't just restrict your use of it as they see fit -- unless, I suppose, you were foolish enough to sign an agreement allowing them to.

The only restrictions I've ever personally seen have been a requirement to carry comprehensive car insurance for some minimum amount. And, of course, there's a lien on the car so you can't sell it without having the lien removed (typically by repaying the loan).

like an insurance company?

How about a million dollar cruse missile? Deal?

https://www.bicycling.com/culture/a41119529/the-most-dangero...

what in tarnation

Maybe the Bronco selling like crazy will convince carmakers to issue "remastered" versions of previous cars, and maybe the remastering won't be "stick a 17inch screen in the center console."

Everyone is reselling the more or less same cheap Chinese units at insane markups. Firmware seems to be mostly identical. The tracking portals never have HTTPS. I haven't been able to find anything decent so far.

I find the story wholly believable, a lot of people who work in payments seem to be stupid and/or stubborn, and it might be the industry selects for those traits.

After 5 days, the check is discovered to be fake, and you have to pay the money. They're taking advantage of the payment lag.

The days of cashier's checks being default trustworthy are long gone.

(although, yeah, you'd think GM Finance would have all that in most metropolitan areas.)

Yeah, better they haul off the person's home over $50 and subject them to a minimum of hundreds in retrieval/storage fees. /s

Although somewhat rare, there are in fact tow operators who aren't pieces of shit and wouldn't do something like this in the first place.

Zeroth, there really is no substitute for losing your home. Not being taken in for the night, not a shelter.

First, morality and legality are not identical.

Second, not doing something is a choice. Not acting and acting both have moral implications.

Third, systems are at times very good at pitting individuals against other. An employee can say "they are just doing their job"; meanwhile it is the organization structure that might strictly limit what authority the employee has. This can put the customer in the unfortunate position of having to raise issues with multiple layers of people, which takes away from their normal duties, before getting an issue resolved. A considerate customer might feel bad for "taking up" the first tier employee's time. This is by design. Think of car dealerships. I feel terrible for the dynamic of almost everyone involved there.

I haven't really laid out the specific connection, but I think you can see what I'm getting at. The car companies that hire repo companies probably don't empower the repo companies to exercise discretion. The people that build these corporate structures tend to understand human psychology and use it to their advantage.

Have you ever stood up for something? Anything? Have you ever told someone what they are doing is wrong / unacceptable?

Was that person doing his job or doing terrible things was a hobby?

[1] https://www.ford.com/finance/investor-center/ford-interest-a...

This article is something like 5-10 years behind reality: Right now subprime auto loans are mostly enforced with GPS trackers that buyers are usually not made properly aware of, or even worse, tricked into paying for as an add-on pitched as being for their own benefit.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/dealbook/gps-dev...

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There are entire businesses built on selling poor people cars at truly insane interest rates, on payments they clearly can't afford, repossessing the cars on the cheap with GPS trackers, then selling then to the next poor person with bad credit.

This grift isn't new, but cheap GPS trackers and license scanners reduced the cost per repossession in a way that enabled these places to be signficantly more brazen about it.

Unfortunately the two prevailing takes I see on this are "they're subprime for a reason" as if they deserve it, and "well at least someone is still giving them a chance, you need a car in this country" (and of course some well meaning but ill informed people think you can just take public transport in every part of the country)

The reality is this is worse than nothing in many cases. Buy here, pay here have people pay more frequently so that they can repo a car within days not months of someone buying them. The process isn't free either, it's disruptive, and they'll continue to leech off the owner in collections.

-

Overall it feels like a classic case of short sightedness from society. Saying we should directly subsidized subprime people's access to affordable loans and cars would be a non-starter: It sounds like some bleeding heart charity case making the responsible pay for the irresponsible.

But then we'll all indirectly fund a much worse version of that when subprime auto loans start to implode (like they're probably already starting to with the interest rate hikes...) and we're all paying to pick up the pieces in multiple ways. If the bottom falls out the car market, well right now even middle class families are taking loans with insane terms that leave them underwater in a good market. The pain will trickle up and out from just subprime lenders and cars specifically.

Regular licenses for software you do "buy" can be retracted but that rarely happens in practice.

Hell no. It starts that way, and it ends with "you are not allowed to live".

Humans are bad at predicting edge cases. That cuts both directions. Machines should give guidance, not provide enforcement.

In practice, not everyone might have the choice to just not buy that feature.

But then again, I'm sure you can increase the speed to the average careful elderly driver.

You can lose your license and not be allowed to drive anywhere, but you can still walk around - that's the whole rights VS privilege thing

That may be true. But it's also possible that measuring blood alcohol with breath tests is never going to work consistently for all people. Breathalyzers are well known for widely variable results between people who have identical BAC.

If it's meant to be used by everyone (I'm not thinking DUI recidivists, how many people have you seen rationalize driving after a drink or two or six) then make it usable by everyone.

Edit: Just occurred to me this is probably a theoretic future state

I see the rights of government as secondary by default with exceptions meted out strictly as necessary. There exists a very limited number of jurisdictions where property taxes don't exist and land ownership is therefore real, so there's no philosophical/legal impediment to foregoing property taxes.

I'd personally much prefer to make public transit that is so good that everyone uses it.

Japanese car dealerships have been this way recently, before the pandemic hit we tried to buy a new Honda Fit and had to buy a used one because they had none in inventory because, allegedly, the factory had washed away in a flood but they had a row of 50 CR-Vs made in the same factory. The dealer tried to push us into one of those.

The automotive press uncritically reports that American consumers are crazy about huge vehicles but what I've observed is that dealers are crazy about selling huge vehicles. Before the pandemic you would frequently see small cars were selling out as fast they arrived on the lot but dealers would have a sea of huge and expensive vehicles and be offering $8000 or so in incentives to sell them. If small vehicles were really unpopular it would be the other way around.

There are rumors that Toyota and Honda would love to kill the Corolla and Civic but the quality of those vehicles is so legendary and the attachment of owners is so fanatical that they know people aren't going to "trade up" but will be paying new car prices for high mileage vehicles.

LEOs are also notoriously corrupt and difficult to keep tabs on. Imagine police harassment when they have the ability to remotely shut off your car.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hastings_(journalist...

Not saying they're super common, but as someone who writes software, I don't like the increasing dependency on software implementations of certain components that are fairly simple in their mechanical form.

- Camping overnight is both illegal, and less comfortable than the hotel I was basing my hikes out of

I drove there, stayed at a hotel, and hiked out from that hotel every day. It was a very memorable trip. I then drove home.

The alternative would have been to get a bus to the train station (40 minutes), a train to the south of the park (2 hours), get a bus from the train station to another town (only 2 buses a day, morning and night, so we'd have had to leave home much earlier or lose a day), get another bus from that town to another town, then get another bus from that town to another town. All whilst lugging a large suitcase, camera bag & gear, and another backpack between us. The buses would have taken another 3 hours. Then if I needed to get home in an emergency, or otherwise leave quickly, I'd have to redo it all backwards, and hope I could make that twice a day bus.

No thanks, I'll just stick with my 1.5 hour drive from my front door to the hotel.

I've noticed that the arrogant and condescending people who are most opposed to cars tend to be childless young urbanites with very limited life experience. The rest of the country operates in a completely different way, and votes accordingly.

My observed injury rate per vehicle mile, per trip, or per time spent, in a car is much lower than the same rates on a bicycle. Incidentally, my largest injury on a bike was due to street car rails, so thanks public transit for making the roads less safe for bicycling. I can't count the number of times I've tripped while walking, resulting in mostly minor injuries, but nevertheless more injuries than I've sustained in automobiles (not counting violence from siblings). Lack of safety restraints on public transit mean more minor injuries from sudden stops as well.

> Cars are too big and too heavy

Autorickshaws are much smaller, lighter, and more fuel efficient. Plus they're cute!

> Infrastructure demands are too great

Infrastructure demands for cars scale. You can use cars if you can get fuel to enough fueling stations and have cleared trees and other obstacles from paths. Pavement is optional but encouraged. Parking lots are nice to have, but any cleared space works. You don't get a lot of speed, and probably not much fuel efficiency, but it works. Paved roads are nicer, and they get built because they're useful. Of course, busses and bicycles like paved roads too (paving for bikes requires a lot lower standard too).

If you can't get fuel to fueling stations, there's things like wood gasifiers[1], although gasoline and diesel are much more scalable if the infrastructure is present.

> Walking, biking, and public transit in a livable community is the only rational way forward.

This would severely limit the scope of livable communities. Or at least significantly increase transit time for many to most activities. Those are all great options, when available and appropriate, but a lot of times it's not the best mode of transportation and often it's not even appropriate. The diversity of origin/destination pairs in most metropolitan areas of a certain size makes it very hard for most users to be served by direct public transit routes, and hub and spoke routing makes a lot of trips turn into first go 30 minutes in the wrong direction, then 30 minutes in the right direction, when a point to point automobile trip would be much less time.

I can't imagine some of my recent trips working well with public transit. Especially those trips where I'm carrying sports equipment for multiple people not traveling with me. How do you take three or four sets of hockey gear on a bicycle, or walking the half mile uphill from the bus stop to my home?

[1] https://www.amusingplanet.com/2022/02/wood-gas-vehicles-cars...

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HN used to bury Reddit-like comments a while back, but it seems the Reddit influence is becoming more and more accepted on HN these days, as I’m starting to see them more at the top vs. the bottom of threads.

Back on topic:

I find this hard to believe, what happens if it repossess itself by mistake? Gets in an accident on the way home during said repo? Especially since nowadays most Fords are just oversized trucks.

And why is this even a desired feature? Is the average Ford customer that untrustworthy? I’m curious what the expected amount of use for a feature like this is.

In any case, autonomous driving isn’t far along enough yet for this to be practical and out in the streets, so I wonder how it even got approval.

Please make it stop...

For instance:

i found hn throuh r/hackernews